Zarda (Sweetened Rice Dish)

Ingredients

• ½ kilo rice
• ½ kilo of granulated sugar
• ¼ cup of water
• ½ cup of vegetable ghee (hydrogenated vegetable oil)
• Almonds, pistachio ½ cup (finely sliced)
• Raisins ¼ cup
• 3 whole green cardamoms
• Kewra ½ tsp
• 1/4 cup of khoya or khoya sweet (milk derivative)
• 8 Small bite size ras gula or gulab jamun
• 2 cloves
• yellow food colour 1 tsp

Method

Step 1

Wash the rice and soak it in cold water. Boil water add in food colour 1 tsp yellow and let it cook till andante, don’t overcook, strain the water. Put rice to one side. Take ¼ cup of water along with sugar heat it over a medium flame in a pan till the sugar dissolves. In another pan heat the ghee, add cardamom, cloves (optional), raisins and fry them till they release their aroma add them to the rice

Step 2

Pour the sugar syrup into the rice stir very gently and leave it with the lid on low flame till the water dries out from rice. Garnish with pistachios, almonds, gulab jamun/rusgula (small white cheese balls), khoya (milk derivative/attained from split milk).